


The Dragon's Mouth

by traveller



Series: The Dragon's Mouth [1]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-06
Updated: 2005-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>The <em>Black Pearl</em> sinks on the 17th of September in the Year of Our Lord 17-, while coming through the Dragon's Mouth to Port-of-Spain. </cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dragon's Mouth

_We had a deal my life for my ship it was always the deal and this ain't the deal you traitorous backstabbing bitch not my ship not my fucking ship no take the sails take the guns take the men take **me** you pig fucking whore this ain't right you can't do this you don't get her you don't get her not her not when my blood is in these boards not my ship. _

_Not my ship._

The _Black Pearl_ sinks on the 17th of September in the Year of Our Lord 17-, while coming through the Dragon's Mouth to Port-of-Spain. The storm comes up as if out of nowhere, they say later, and the _Pearl_ tries to outrun it, tries to make it through the narrow strait and into the safe harbour of the bay.

She doesn't.

 _No hurricane has ever made land on Trinidad, true fact, it's written... somewhere. Somewhere. Spanish priests. They write things down. The storm that... that... the storm, they say, was not a hurricane. Because hurricanes don't come to Trinidad and not a banana leaf stirred on the island and anyways, twas only a lot of pirates got drowned. What brought up the storm? I don't know. They say it was God, but I say maybe the sea's salty cunt has teeth, and once she swallows a man he don't never get out again._

A single survivour is found, floating as if dead, but when the skiff pulls alongside he grabs on to an oar, clings to the thing so tightly it takes three men to prise his fingers free, to pull him up out of the water. A single survivour, a lifelong sailor by the look of him - he is bone and leather and sinew, he is black and bronze and blue. His hair is a tangle of elf-locks, his clothes are rags. He holds his arms to his chest as if cradling a phantom child, he rocks and drips in the corner of the skiff and does not speak until they ask,

\- The Captain, Captain Sparrow. Do you know what became of the Captain?

\- He went down with her. Down down down.

By the time they come into port, his laughter has diminished to sobs. They leave him for the nuns to mind.

 _Down down down._

Either by coincidence or celestial design, it happens that the newly gazetted commander of the tiny garrison at Port-of-Spain once commanded the fort at Port Royal; Norrington thinks it might be Providence, but he isn't sure yet whether or not to curse her or thank her.

 _The nuns gave him a shirt and breeches and shoes, and when they told him they were going to cut his hair he shrugged, didn't matter, just dressing the corpse. No songs, no stories for his wake, no ringing bell, no offering to the sea. No blood, no fire, no salt, no wine. Nothing nothing nothing and nobody will mourn the dead man, nobody will tell his tales, he's gone to the sea and the sea wouldn't have him._

The mission is barely more than a shack, its walls whitewashed too-bright. They have given their guest the priest's quarters: a cot on the floor, a cross on the wall, basin and bowl on a table, and it is Jack, it is Jack, stripped of everything that once made him _Captain_ Jack Sparrow. James stops short in the doorway, holding to the frame for balance. Time has been more than kind, even if Fate has not. The clipped curve of Jack's skull, the long line of his neck, they are absurdly beautiful.

There is no recognition in Jack's eyes; he addresses James in a tone of indifference.

\- Am I a prisoner?

\- No.

The beads of the rosary are carved of driftwood, pale in sun-dark hands. He can't stop watching them slide through Jack's fingers, round and round and round again.

\- You're a Papist?

\- No.

James blinks, refocuses. The pendant swinging from the rosary isn't a crucifix at all, but the shape of a woman, the figurehead of a ship.

 _Found adrift and you may claim, finders is keepers, yours is yours am yours. Yours by the right of salvage. Yours by the code._

::

Port-of-Spain is little more than an outpost, a collection of shacks among the mangroves, a restless native population and a clutch of Spanish missionaries. There is one large estate on the north side of the island, the home of a prosperous slaver. He'd invited James to dine one night, a few days after the wreck of the Pearl, had spoken at enthusiastic length about his breeding scheme.

James feigned interest in both the topic and the food, and had stopped the carriage a half mile from Mr J-'s gates to vomit. All night the smell of death from the outbuildings had blown in through the verandah doors.

 _Hell reeks of low tide and piss and rot and Hell bloody well **prays** all the time and Hell mocks him with a face he'd never intended to see again, least not in this life, so it makes sense, then, that this is Hell. _

_Hell is dry land._

\- He cannot stay with us.

James bows his head to Padre Miguel, clasps the man's weathered hands. Even charity is a finite resource on this little scrap of land. The priest continues,

\- He is no trouble, he does not eat. He will take a little water sometimes. A little wine. But the sisters... they do not like it.

Don't like what? Playing host to the shade of a dead pirate? James nods again, says,

\- I. I will see to him.

When James fetches him, Jack follows without a word.

 _I know fifty-six names for the sea and I know stars that have no names and I know the way to an island that cannot be found. I know what birds to follow to find calm waters and swift winds, I know what fishes to throw back lest you die gasping for breath. I know what the waves say to the shore, I know the sound of a turning tide, I know how to sound a channel with a single hair._

 _I know nothing._

He is, he explains, on Trinidad only long enough to help facilitate the transfer of power from the Spanish to the British. The governor's residence is still being built, and this was the most suitable lodging for a man of his rank - as such, he explains, he does not have much to offer a guest in the way of accommodation.

At the word _guest_ Jack's head tilts curiously, birdlike. James clears his throat.

\- There is a room at the back of the house. It was for, ah. Well. It isn't being used. You're welcome to it.

Jack's head tilts again, back the other way. The beads wrapped around his fist click as he rubs them with his thumb.

\- Slaves' quarters. But no slaves?

His voice is rough.

\- Yes, that's right.

Jack rolls his shoulders and nods, turns to go. James sets his jaw, speaks sharply.

\- You could _thank_ me, Sparrow.

The shoulders stop, hunched. James imagines he can hear the other man's harsh breathing.

\- Thank you, he says softly, but that isn't my name anymore.

::

 _The weatherglass rises and falls by the window that looks to sea and the tide comes in and out in the bay and the moon wanes, waxes and wanes again. He traces charts on the windowpane, reckons the date and the position of the planets._

 _He forgets many things, but he remembers he's never been ashore so long._

It becomes easy to forget that Jack is there. Visitors become accustomed to the Commodore's silent ward, sitting motionless as he does at the window. At first they whisper things like _pirate_ and _dangerous_ then things like _shipwreck_ and _mad_ and finally they say nothing at all beyond _Good day, Jack._

Jack never speaks to them, although sometimes he'll give a smile to the ladies, the briefest flash of gold. The weeks of bread and wine have lent Jack a kind of wasted beauty, and James is always startled to see it cracked by a glint of the past, even for a moment before Jack turns away again, turns back to his relentless watching.

 _The only rules that matter are these: what a man can do, and what a man can't do._

 _He can see the masts of Norrington's sloop down in the cove; he can close his eyes and hear the waters lap at her sides. He can feel the lines slide across his palms; he can hear the flap of the sail._

 _He can't. He can't._

 _His fingers trace the shape of a wheel; a memory, nothing more._

Diplomacy is neither early to bed nor early to rise, entirely unlike the Navy; James' eyes snap open at first light no matter the quantities of brandy and Malaga he'd drunk the night before. The house is quiet, his maid not yet arrived, and Jack will be at the window, if he's not sat on the chaise, reading the slim volume of poetry that had appeared one day.

\- Where did you get that? James had asked.

Jack had shrugged.

\- Found it, he answered, and would say no more.

James had not had the heart to pursue the matter; if in all this time Jack's nimble fingers had wandered only to the nicking of a book, well. It was hardly a capital crime.

 _Not my ship._

It becomes easy to forget that Jack is there, and when Jack goes, James almost doesn't miss him. The sudden hammering of a nearby woodpecker startles him while he makes his toilet, the calls of the plovers make the gooseflesh rise up on his arms. He dresses, ties his hair back, makes his way down the narrow stair.

The front room is empty, but Jack's book is there, open face-down on the cushion.

 _Not my ship._

James gets three steps toward his office before fear claws at his belly, some instinct rarely exercised making his insides twist.

\- Sparrow!

No answer. He goes to the back of the house. The cot is neatly made. Jack's rosary lies coiled on the pillow like a small pale adder.

\- Jack!

 _Gone to the sea and the sea would not have him._

James follows the footprints in the mud, down the track to the cove, down the rough planks of the dock, and they are much less formal here, no Marines to guard the ship, nothing more than a rope, a formality.

If someone takes her, so be it. It's the arse end of the Caribbean anyway, nobody here _wants_ to be here, they're all flung up on the shore like the flotsam they are. A stolen ship would mean nothing to his superiors - he could get another one, a better one, he'd still be stuck at this thankless post.

The wind gusts. The sails fill. James holds his breath and Jack's rosary; the ship does not move.

\- The sea wouldn't have me, comes the voice, dull and heavy with hurt.

James shades his eyes with his hand; Jack is at the helm, hands poised above the handles but not touching. It is not the wheel of the _Mary Anne_ that he is caressing, but the remembered shape of a lost love.

He mounts the plank. Jack steps back, sits heavily on a barrel.

\- Jack.

Jack shakes his head, looks down at his hands.

\- The sea wouldn't have me, he repeats. I passed through the Dragon's Mouth and it spit me back out.

\- You're not dead, James says stupidly, harshly.

\- Am I not? Jack pats his chest, an exaggerated gesture.

\- No.

\- No.

 _No_.

James sits down beside him. They are still there when the housemaid comes running, worried to have found the front door open and all the house gone missing.

The wind rises, the birds spin and wheel above. The ship stirs at its moorings, waiting.


End file.
